History
It’s Best Not to Call the Moderator at Town Meeting a Liar
It’s best not to call the moderator at Town Meeting a liar, and there are a few other “don’ts” we’d suggest, too…
Welcome to the March 2016 edition of Jud’s New England Journal, the rather curious monthly musings of Judson Hale, the Editor-in-Chief of Yankee Magazine, published in Dublin, New Hampshire since 1935.
It’s Best Not to Call the Moderator at Town Meeting a Liar
And there are a few other “don’ts” we’d suggest, too…..
Some desirable attributes for getting along in a small New England town would include common sense, humility, patience, compassion and a good instinct for the sensitivity of others. Actually, all of these would be perfectly obvious to almost everyone. Almost. On the other hand, one would assume most wealthy summer people would know that not paying bills to local businesses for months is rankling to townspeople. It would seem equally obvious, too, that one would not ignore local labor and hire work from outside; in a letter to the local newspaper advocating that newer people be taxed more, one would not refer to one’s own property as “my ancestral lands”; one would think twice about giving one’s worn-out clothing to a family one considers poor; one would not ask the commodore of the local yacht club how much money he’d be willing to take for his boat; one would be very careful about decorating one’s garden for the annual garden club tour by hanging one’s underwear on various casually displayed clotheslines to simulate the gay informality of an Italian garden; during a burial service at the cemetery, one would not refer to the bereaved wife of the recently deceased resident as “the widder of the corpse”; one would not put one’s opinion at a church meeting into the form of a motion when it is obvious the majority do not agree; one would not show up at a Memorial Day parade in a costume; one would resist the temptation to take, as seconds, the last piece of lemon meringue pie at a church supper; and finally, one would not call the town moderator a liar during town meeting.
I have been witness to each and every instance I’ve just listed. Yes – even coming to the Memorial Day parade in a costume. (A friend of mine saw nothing wrong in showing up as a Scottish soldier.) As to calling the town moderator a liar, I was there and the town moderator that year was my uncle, Robb Sagendorph, founder of Yankee Publishing, Inc. Well, he was not actually called a liar. Rather, Robb responded to some criticism from the floor by saying a bit angrily, “Ben, do you mean to call me a liar?”
The retort was, “No, Robb, I don’t. But ain’t you?”
The laughter throughout the town hall that followed totally diffused the situation. Laughter has a wonderful way of doing that.
Some desirable attributes for getting along in a small New England town would include common sense, humility, patience, compassion and a good instinct for the sensitivity of others. Actually, all of these would be perfectly obvious to almost everyone. Almost. On the other hand, one would assume most wealthy summer people would know that not paying bills to local businesses for months is rankling to townspeople. It would seem equally obvious, too, that one would not ignore local labor and hire work from outside; in a letter to the local newspaper advocating that newer people be taxed more, one would not refer to one’s own property as “my ancestral lands”; one would think twice about giving one’s worn-out clothing to a family one considers poor; one would not ask the commodore of the local yacht club how much money he’d be willing to take for his boat; one would be very careful about decorating one’s garden for the annual garden club tour by hanging one’s underwear on various casually displayed clotheslines to simulate the gay informality of an Italian garden; during a burial service at the cemetery, one would not refer to the bereaved wife of the recently deceased resident as “the widder of the corpse”; one would not put one’s opinion at a church meeting into the form of a motion when it is obvious the majority do not agree; one would not show up at a Memorial Day parade in a costume; one would resist the temptation to take, as seconds, the last piece of lemon meringue pie at a church supper; and finally, one would not call the town moderator a liar during town meeting.
I have been witness to each and every instance I’ve just listed. Yes – even coming to the Memorial Day parade in a costume. (A friend of mine saw nothing wrong in showing up as a Scottish soldier.) As to calling the town moderator a liar, I was there and the town moderator that year was my uncle, Robb Sagendorph, founder of Yankee Publishing, Inc. Well, he was not actually called a liar. Rather, Robb responded to some criticism from the floor by saying a bit angrily, “Ben, do you mean to call me a liar?”
The retort was, “No, Robb, I don’t. But ain’t you?”
The laughter throughout the town hall that followed totally diffused the situation. Laughter has a wonderful way of doing that.
